The following hand took place months ago, so some of the information might not be 100% correct. It takes place at a rural NC weekly home game.

It is a 1/2 game, but in order to pacify preflop action and remove skill from the game by making stacks relatively shallower, and obscuring position, there is a mandatory $5 straddle from whoever won the previous pot. Mississippi straddles are allowed, uncapped, and encouraged .

Most V's are in there 40's - 60's. The table skill level is bad. Tons of limping, not much thinking. There are 3 competent regs in the pool, but they don't always show up, and they play tight, face-up/ABC poker.

Hero is a mid 20's dark/ethnic looking caucasian kid, and the best/youngest player at the table. In spite of this, he certainly has a losing image because he's rarely bankrolled to play more than 2 BI, and used to have a tilt problem, leaving after running bad/getting sucked out on. For multiple sessions hero went on a statistically unlikely stretch of card deadedness and bad variance. (gii ahead almost every single time, losing every single all-in for multiple sessions except one with AQo bluffing out a field of two players minus a horribad donk, who got it in with a gutty and somehow two live pair outs with 85o lol. This hand was earlier in the session. It is also a hand in which V folded the hand that was ahead at the time, and at the end (middle pair of 7's). Playing solidly most of the time, but occasionally spewy. Most players aren't skilled enough to recognize this, and simply view hero as a bad-aggro, nitty player.

V in the hand is a MAWG, maybe 40. Overall passive, but does seemingly bet his medium-strong hands most of the time. Never played with him before, but from what was being said at the table, he didn't win often. He was competent to an extent but not incredibly skilled. In a previous weird (tilted) hand HU with him, I check-shoved a short stack with bottom pair on a 752 flop with K2. He thought for a bit and called with 88. Haven't noticed him making any plays, and he checked back a set otr HU on a fairly dry board with a turned flush, missing a clear value bet in my eyes. He's pretty much just playing his cards and winning some small/medium value pots at SD, but has built up a reasonable stack to about $300.

9 Handed (blegh). Stacks range from about $100 - $350. Many players bought in for $100, but after some reloading, avg. stacks are around $150, a shallow game.

The Hand:

After shipping BI #1, Hero has ~$180 and is dealt TT UTG.

Forced $5 straddle from the CO

Folds to Hero who opens $15 (on the slightly smaller side of standard)

V (covers) is on Hero's immediate left and calls.

Folds to the HJ who calls, and CO folds.

(Pot ~$50) Flop: 987

Hero leads for $35 (honestly a larger C-bet size for the table), V ponders briefly (doesn't appear to be hollywooding) and makes it $75. HJ predictably folds. Hero fiddles with stack (chip shuffling, coin twirling, butterflying, etc), ponders, then jams for ~$165 to go.

I instinctively knew he had 8 combos of the nuts, 2 combos of JTs, 4 combos of 65s (calling raise in "EP," really?), 9 combos of sets, 6 combos of 66, many combos of FD's (bad enough to call a raise from his position, all be it there was NOT much squeezing at the table), and I estimated him having around 15 combos of hands he could reasonably play that would make 2 pair. I didn't necessarily do all this math at the table, but I've been in somewhat similar spots to have a decent idea of how my equity was against his range.

Basically what it came down to was: iHazOverPairWithOpenEnderTooMuchEquityAndNutBlocke rzFUiShove



Thoughts on all streets Please.

(I realize the straddle's impact on diminishing my skill edge, and I recognize the potential for bad variance is a killer since I wasn't rolled for the game. No need to repeat that it was a degenerative spot for me to get into )

One of my rules of 1/2 is that people only c/r connected boards with a straight, especially when they size it very small. Raising in position is a little wider but usually the same super nutted range. When they have a set/2p/overpair/garbage end of the straight they usually go bigger since a lot of turn cards suck. As played with OESD/overpair/backdoor FD I guess you can call it off but it's pretty close either way and not much +EV to be had unless V is an idiot.

First things first, with a $5 mandatory straddle, you're only 37 bbs deep. So if you stack off with TT on a 987hhx board, how bad can it be?

That said, if you just call the $75 on the flop, your fold equity to an unskilled player should appear to be zero, so he's probably not trying to bluff us off our hand here on the turn. In other words, he might slow down, we might hit a heart that's a scare card (if he flopped a straight or 2P), we might draw to our straight or set (10 outs, unless v has blockers). If the turn pairs the board, and he still jams, we can just fold it. Otherwise we probably call it off and hope for a J. But at least we get more info and a chance to soul read, knowing hes probably not bluffing us often by the turn.

Straightforward passive guy massage raises a big cbet from an UTG PFR on a scary board while hero blocks chunks of what he needs V to have. I'm not even sure the price you get on a shove this shallow even makes it worth it under these circumstances. You need, what 33%? Prob cbet less or ck, I'd just fold given action.

I'm never folding this flop starting this short with this SPR in a home game donkfest. No fricken way. X/jam might be better, idk. Just stick your chips in there. His range should easily include all sorts of Ax among other things.

Apologies for the info surplus. I think some of it was more of a rant than actual relevant information, so my b.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll reply to feedback and maybe post what happened next.